“Er, we’re going to paint it of course, but yes, that’s what I was thinking.”
“And where am I going to sleep? On that?” she said, pointing to the mattress that was leaning against the wall.
“Mom is sending all your things over tomorrow. Everything from your old room. Ulrik’s bought new furniture for you, right?”
She dropped the backpack in a corner and sprawled in the old wicker chair, the only other furniture in the room apart from the mattress. The wicker creaked.
“And you can cut that out.” She pointed an accusatory finger at the cigarettes he had just taken out. “You’re not smoking in here.”
He fumbled with the pack then put it back in his pocket. It was unbelievable how she could order him around. You could forget a lot in two months.
She kicked off her shoes and folded her legs under her. “At least it’s not far from Caro’s place.”
“Caroline? Has she moved away from home?” Had it already begun?
“She’s subletting an apartment on Ørholmgade.” She looked up at him. “Relax. Her mom is so tough, and she knew someone who’d be travelling all summer.” She began texting again.
So it was just a trial. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing? With Caroline around the corner, the chances of Maria wanting to be here increased considerably.
“We’re going to a colleague’s for dinner tonight,” he said. “I’m just going out on the balcony to — smoke.”
“Fine,” she said and rolled her eyes. Her phone beeped.
Lars closed the balcony door behind him, exhaled. The cigarette was already in his mouth. He struck a match and drew the smoke deep into his lungs.
An Audi streaked out of the roundabout, nearly grazing a rattling Opel. There was honking and a finger out the window. Lars looked back into the apartment. His home had just been subjected to something close to a hostile takeover and he had no idea what to do about it.
He looked at his watch. It was quarter to five. They had to be at Sanne’s for six o’clock. He threw the butt down onto the street and went inside.
“I’m just going to take a shower,” he shouted. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”
But the door to the bathroom was closed. When he tried the handle, it was locked.
Sanne answered the door on the third floor at Århusgade.
“Hi Sanne.” Lars handed her the bottle of wine they had bought at Føtex on their way over. “Maria, this is Sanne.” He pushed Maria in front of him. “It smells delicious.”
“Thanks,” Sanne said. “I hope you like fish. We’re having plaice.”
The evening went far better than Lars had expected. Sanne managed to engage his grumpy teenage daughter, and during the meal Maria laughed and told funny stories about her new teachers at Øregård high school. And as soon as Maria discovered that Sanne’s boyfriend, Martin, was a Monty Python fan, she was sold.
Immediately after the meal, Maria and Martin disappeared to the room next door to watch an episode of the original BBC television show on the flat screen. Sanne and Lars cleared the table.
“How’s it going with the case?” Sanne was rinsing the plates and putting them in the dishwasher. Lars came into the kitchen with the rest of the dishes. He told her about the search, the bloodstained shirt.
“That was quick,” she said.
“The Internet helped.” He explained how they had got on Mikkel Rasmussen’s track by checking the club and bar web sites for photos at Penthouse from that night. “Unfortunately, it’s as though the ground opened up and swallowed him whole. He’s probably in hiding.”
Sanne nodded as she rinsed the serving dishes.
They stood in silence. Lars turned his glass in his hands. “Is it a good idea to piss off your boss in your first week? I mean, by having me and Maria over like this?”
Sanne shook her head. “I’m here to learn, right? Frelsén said you were the best. Ulrik got annoyed about that too.”
He laughed. So Frelsén had complained about him being dropped from the case. It must have been an interesting autopsy.
“Did you find out anything else about the girl — Mira, was it?”
“Hmm.” Sanne nodded. “There was a letter among her personal effects, from her mom.” Sanne was looking down at the sink. Lars followed her eyes. Scraps of plaice, potatoes, and parsley floated around in the cloudy dishwater, swirling toward the drain with a loud gurgle. “Another short-lived, sad life. She probably would have ended up like she did somewhere else anyway.”
“You must never think like that,” he said. “That’s how the bureaucrats think, how Ulrik thinks.” Then he caught himself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t get you mixed up in my problems.”
Sanne grimaced. “I think I’m starting to share your opinion of him.”
“Cheers to that.” Lars raised his glass.
They clinked glasses, then Sanne put hers on the counter.
“What about you?” she said. “Your wife ran off with your boss and you’ve got a teenage daughter. Who else is there? Parents?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Lars looked out the window. “Well, my mom lives in a housing co-op in Sydhavnen. I suppose she’s what you’d call a life artist.”
“And your dad?”
Lars’s gaze followed the ruler-straight line of hedges outside, the flowerbeds that framed the courtyard. Jungle gyms, sandboxes. Benches for the stylish Østerbro parents.
“It’s been a while since I saw him last. He’s American. Absconded from military service and Vietnam in the late 1960s. He finally ended up in the hippie camp in Thylejren, where he met my mom. As she tells the story, she got pregnant almost straight away.”
“And he’s not here anymore?”
“In 1977, Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to ten thousand deserters. Among them was my dad. I was nine years old when he went back to the U.S. Now he’s a professor of criminology at Columbia in New York,” he said. “And you? You’re from Kolding?”
“Another time.” Sanne put down the sponge and went into the living room. Lars followed. From the TV room, they could hear Maria and Martin crying with laughter at “The Cheese Shop” sketch.
Lars sat down at the table, spun his glass by the stem. Sanne remained standing on the other side and pulled a file out of her purse.
“According to the autopsy report, Mira was shot with a nine millimetre Husqvarna P-40.”
Lars whistled. “An antique?”
“It was originally manufactured for the Finnish army. During the war, when the Swedes couldn’t get their standard weapon, the Walther P38 from Germany, they decided to start producing their own.” She looked at him. “Ulrik is convinced Ukë and Meriton killed her. But would they use an antique gun?”
“Who else then?”
“A collector, or someone who has access to the weapon through their family? Of course it could have been stolen too.”
Lars grabbed the file and began reading the report. “What did Frelsén say? What about the eyes?”
“The same as when we found her. No scoring of the skull in the eye socket. It was a fine, almost surgical cut. And then she was injected with glutaraldehyde through the large vein in her thigh. Glutaraldehyde gives the tissue that yellowish tone we saw on the body. Formaldehyde, which is used today, doesn’t cause discolouration.”
“So you’re looking for someone who uses an antique weapon and old methods of preserving bodies?”
Sanne nodded. Lars closed his eyes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger until it hurt.
Sanne reached for her glass. She squeezed the stem until her knuckles went white. “One sick bastard.”
In the cab, on their way home, Maria was in high spirits.
“‘I’m keen to guess.’” Her bad imitation of John Cleese ended with her doubled over with laughter. The cab driv
er sent him a disapproving look in the rearview mirror. Lars shifted slightly away from her. Not everyone could tell that they were father and daughter.
Maria stopped laughing, pushed her hair back, and looked at him. Was that a smile? “She’s sweet, Sanne. Too bad she’s with Martin.”
Lars cleared his throat. “She’s just a colleague. I . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Maria looked at him. Then she turned her head and stared out the window.
Chapter 17
He sits at the head of the table; the candles are lit. Sonja and Hilda are on either side of the long dining table. It’s covered with Mother’s best damask, her silverware and seagull dinner service. At the other end of the table, Karen’s place is empty. He leans back, looks around the cellar. This is how it should be in here. No complaining, no arguing. The soup bubbling on the stove. The confusion, the bad times are over. He should have done something, taken action earlier; he should not have stood idly by. But he does love them, all of them. As you love your family. Something trembles deep down. An equilibrium is disturbed. Lorin Maazel and the Vienna Philharmonic with Agnes Baltsa are on the phonograph. Kindertotenlieder.
Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen,
Bald werden sie wieder nach Hause gelangen.
Der Tag ist schön, o sei nicht bang,
Sie machen nur einen weiten Gang.
He gets sad anyway. It’s difficult to say goodbye like that. He does not want to punish. Tears press forth. And the trembling. Upstairs, the heavy floorboards creak. Is someone disturbing his peace? A Sten gun leans against the ammunition boxes in the corner. But there’s nothing else. The sounds of an old house can make you crazy. No, wait. The creaking is inside him. His skeleton is creaking. The crack opens. Sonja and Hilda cower. They know what’s coming. All the darkness, the black. Flames leap through the fissure. He shuts his eyes, tries to focus. Peace. That’s all he wants. Is that too much to ask ? There’s a throbbing behind his forehead, threatening to explode. He sways back and forth in the chair. The images come to him, images that he has long since banished: Mother no longer gets up; she lies in the small room in the attic. She must be delirious. The things she says, terrible things. It’s wrong. And he is strong. Like Father or Grandfather. Not weak, not like her. He would really like some peace now. But the roar rises from within. It creaks and groans but eventually it gives way as he presses down, and the crack closes again. The flames are gone. Only a small bubble of darkness remains, floating around inside him. He follows it through his body, into the stomach, the chest, the right arm, down through the groin — then he’s back. It’s the soup that saves him. It boils over. The scalding hot liquid extinguishes the gas jet. He jumps up, turns down the temperature on the hot plate, scolding Sonja and Hilda for not warning him. Then he stops, takes a deep breath and looks at them. You shouldn’t pay attention to Daddy’s little idiosyncrasies. He takes their bowls and fills them using the old soup ladle. Dinner is served. He pulls out his chair, sits down. Cabbage soup, Mother’s recipe. Then he has doubts. Was it really all Karen’s fault that he had to let her go? Never mind. Everything is much better now, even if it hurts too. It’s not easy when they fly from the nest. He swallows a spoonful of soup. It’s as though the good atmosphere from before won’t return, as though something is missing. Sonja and Hilda. They miss Karen, of course. But they’ll have to get used to it. She’s not coming back. It’s only when he goes to place her eyes in the bowl in front of the empty seat that he realizes: one’s missing — the green one. He must have dropped it when he returned her.
He sits for a while, forgets the soup. What if all Sonja and Hilda need is a little sister?
August 1944
She places the last plate on the dish rack. Tips the tub upside down and watches the filthy brown water gurgle down the drain with a loud belch. It speaks to her of the horrible thing that comes out during the night and climbs up the creaking stairs to her little room in the attic. The door’s rusty hinges squeak.
She throws the brush into the tub and puts it under the sink. That’s all in the past now. From the living room comes the clicking of Mother’s knitting needles. Father is working on a couple of medical files. They’ll both ruin their eyesight in the yellow light from the kerosene lamp. The blackout curtains are drawn. The three of them are prisoners here — the three of them and the patient downstairs in the cellar — while the spectres perform their danse macabre outside.
She doesn’t mind the deluge of duties anymore. Now she has something to look forward to. In the cellar, everything that makes life worth living awaits her. She washes her hands, dries them on her apron. The tray is already on the serving table, covered with a cloth. She pokes her head into the living room, nods to her parents. Father looks up with a grunt and returns the greeting.
She dances back into the kitchen, grabs the tray, and carries it over to the cellar stairs. At the foot of the stairs, she sets the tray on a small table and opens the secret door behind the vitrine to yet another staircase. He is lying down, at the very back of the labyrinth of bookcases and boxes, on a bed of ammunition, machine guns, and TNT. A wounded warrior surrounded by his weapons. He looks up when he hears her footsteps and his eyes light up.
“Hello, my blossom,” he whispers, readying his lips for a kiss.
She blushes, places the tray on an ammunitions box, slaps the hand that slides up her thigh. She’s not that kind of girl. She wants to hear him talk about his native land now. Glenridding on the shore of Ullswater in the Lake District. The pub down by the lake, the tall mountains that rise up on every side. Narrow, winding paths that cling to the steep mountainsides. His descriptions are so vivid she can picture it all. All that green, the vantage points by Heron Pike and Sheffield Pike, the long Z-shaped lake that meanders toward the northeast between the mountains. The snow-clad Helvellyn, which rises above the village, cold and unapproachable during the winter, warm and covered with grass during the summer. All of that is nice to have when the duties become onerous and it’s a long time till dinner has to be carried down.
Above, the floorboards creak. And in the south, in Berlin and Hamburg, the firestorms melt flesh off bones.
“Tell me how things are in the outside world,” Jack says. “I know you listen to the radio from London.”
She shakes her head. Not now, not here. It is sacred down here; this place must not be defiled.
“You do know I have to get back, right?” He looks at her. The seriousness in his grey eyes colours them dark. “It is my duty. My country — your country — needs me.”
She knows all of that, but he has promised to take her with him. They will flee to Sweden together and then live in England as husband and wife.
She bends over him, her breasts resting lightly on his chest — not too hard, his ribs are still healing — and presses her mouth on his cold lips. Then he starts to speak and his voice becomes warm and the deadly paleness leaves his lips. This, exactly like this. This is how she loves him best.
Again, the floorboards upstairs creak as she feeds him, spoonful after spoonful of the good, thick cabbage soup. It won’t be long before he is fully recovered.
In the end she has to leave, but she promises to return tomorrow. He laughs at their little joke. Then he forms his lips into a kiss. She shakes her head firmly, but smiles as she walks up the stairs; she doesn’t want him to think she is angry. She sends him a final melting look before crawling out through the secret entrance to the first cellar.
She closes the vitrine behind her with a small click, and grabs the tray on her way up. The figure hunched in the dark corner remains unseen as it follows her tiniest movement with eyes of burning coal.
Tuesday
June 17
Chapter 18
The cell phone snarled somewhere outside the dream. Lars opened his eyes, tipped his legs out of the bed. His hand groped in the dark, across the bureau. Maria was mo
ving in the next room. Hopefully in her sleep.
“Yes?”
“This is Duty Officer Jørgensen. There’s been another rape in Østerbro, at the star fortress on Fyens Ravelin. Toke and Lisa are on their way out there as we speak. There’s a squad car parked on the corner of Folke Bernadottes Allé and Grønningen. The officer will give you directions from there.”
“Thanks, I’ll be there right away. Can you call Frank for me?”
“And Kim A?”
“And Kim A. Thanks.”
Drowsy with a half-forgotten dream still lingering in his mind, Lars staggered into the bathroom, took a piss. He splashed cold water on his face and brushed his teeth before he went back into the bedroom to get dressed.
The sound of bare feet on the wooden floor behind him. He turned around. Maria was standing by the door.
“What’s going on?” she whispered drowsily.
He pulled a shirt out of the closet, undid the top button, and pulled it over his head. “Work. Just go back to sleep.”
“Is there — is there another one? I thought you’d caught him?”
“We have a suspect. We haven’t caught him yet.” He stroked her cheek. “But we will. Get some sleep, Maria. I’ll call and wake you up at seven, all right?”
“Mmm.” She rubbed her eyes, squinting in the light. “Promise me you’ll catch him, Dad.”
“Come here.” He stepped toward her and she nestled up to him. A soft and warm baby chick. He kissed the top of her head. “We’ll get him. And now it’s time for you to get some sleep.” He kissed her again, this time on the forehead. “I probably won’t see you until this afternoon. This is going to take all night.”
She waved at him, then slipped back to bed.
Lars shut the door behind him. A small, warm ball in his stomach radiated happiness throughout his entire body.
The streets of Nordvest were deserted and bathed in the dying orange glow of the streetlights. An occasional pedestrian was staggering home from the bars further down Tagensvej. A lonely ambulance. Otherwise nothing. The cab sped down Sølvgade, then turned down Øster Voldgade by the National Gallery of Denmark. He peered into the darkness through the trees where Stine Bang had been assaulted. Did they really have a serial rapist on their hands?
The House That Jack Built Page 7
